Wendlandish

Wendlandish, natively Vinnurlænska or lyngra Vinnurlænska, is a Romance language spoken in an uchronic Earth, in the area of real-world Pomerania. The only member of the Northern Romance branch, Wendlandish has, due to relative and long isolation from the rest of the Romance-speaking world, followed its own path of evolution and has absorbed lots of words, grammatical features, and influence on phonology, from its neighboring languages: most prominently Old Norse, but also Proto-Slavic, Baltic languages, Low German and, more recently, Standard High German and Polish.

Introduction

External history

Wendlandish is my first "serious" attempt at an a posteriori conlang. I wanted to do a language radically different from other ones in its family, so I decided for this (somewhat unrealistic, I admit) setting: a Romance language spoken in what in the real world is Pomerania (roughly between Schwerin and Gdańsk, up to 50-60 km inland from the coast), with lots of Old Norse, Slavic, Baltic, and Polish influences, totally cut off for ages from other Romance-speaking peoples, and in the end becoming in the 20th century a part of the Soviet Union, something that further characterizes the language.

Internal history

Wendlandish is the official and national language of Wendland — natively Vinnurlond, "the Wendlands" —, officially the Soviet Republic of the Wendlands (repuvlik savjetska Vinnurlandana), a sovereign state in Northern Europe, bordering in the west and south with Germany (Þysklond) and in the south and east with Poland (Sløvjænlond); it has a long coast on the Baltic Sea (mær Vinnurlandana, Sea of the Wendlands), which divides it from Denmark (Danmork) and Sweden (Sværikur).
The capital and largest city, with 980,000 inhabitants, is Vænfjørðin. Other major cities are Þyskarhøyfn (pop. about 75,000) in the west, on the coast opposite the country's largest island, Rygn; and Løgurðurp (pop. about 98,000) in the east; most of the country is rural, with more than 70% of the population being concentrated in and around Vænfjørðin (the second-largest city is actually Praljetarski, just north of Vænfjørðin, with about 160,000 inhabitants).

The population of Wendland, at the last census (2014), amounted to about 1,600,000 people; the total number of native Wendlandish speakers is slightly higher, with at least 100,000 people of Wendlandish origin living in other former Soviet countries and a small community in southern Denmark, mostly descendants of people who escaped from Wendland during Soviet times.

Phonology

Orthography

Wendlandish orthography is phonemic and there is a good overall correspondence between letters and sounds. Uniquely for a Romance language, it does not follow conventions inherited from Latin, taking as models Old Norse and Danish instead.

Letter	Aa	Bb	Dd	Ðð	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Kh kh
Sound	/a/ /ɑː/	/b/	/d/	/ð/	/e/ /eː/	/f/	/ɣ/	/h/	/ɪ/ /iː/	/j/	/k/	/x/
Letter	Ll	Mm	Nn	ng	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Sj sj	Tt	Tj tj	Ts ts
Sound	/l/	/m/	/n/	/ŋ/	/ɔ/ /oː/	/p/	/r/	/s/	/ʃ/	/t/	/tʃ/	/ts/
Letter	Þþ	Uu	Vv	Yy	Zz	Ææ	Øø
Sound	/θ/	/ʉ/ /uː/	/v/	/ʏ/ /yː/	/z/	/æ/ /æː/	/œ/ /øː/

The digraphs aj, au, ej, ou, and æj represent the diphthongs /aɪ̯ aʊ̯ eɪ̯ ɔʊ̯ ɛɪ̯/ but are not treated as separate letters, unlike digraphs for consonants.

ng does not have an upper-case version as it does not appear at the beginning of words.

Loanwords are usually adapted without exceptions, like e.g. Polish zakład > zakvat "factory", or German Übermensch > ybermensj. Foreign surnames from languages written in the Latin alphabet are usually however kept the same (except for a few personalities whose names are completely adapted, like Kristsafir Kolum (Christopher Columbus) or Jøna ið Ark (Joan of Arc)); names from other languages were formerly romanized into Wendlandish from their pronunciation (e.g. Лермонтов > Ljermantaf), nowadays pure transliterations are preferred (e.g. Горбачёв > Gorbatjov, pronounced either [gɔɐ̯baˈtʃɔʊ̯] or [ˈɣɔɐ̯batʃɔʊ̯]).

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m			n			ŋ
Plosive	p b			t d			k (g)
Fricative		f	θ ð	s z	ʃ		x ɣ	h
Affricate				ts	tʃ
Approximant		ʋ (v)				j
Trill				r
Lateral app.				l

/g/ is not a native phoneme of Wendlandish, but some people use it in unassimilated loanwords which originally had it. For example granís "border" is a totally assimilated loanword (from Polish granica) and is pronounced [ɣraˈniːs], while gató "cake (in specific contexts)" (from French gâteau) isn't and may be pronounced [gaˈtoː], but more commonly is [ɣaˈtoː].

Similarly, /v/ is used by some speakers instead of /ʋ/ (and its coda allophone [ʊ̯]) in words of Polish origin, even in "assimilated" loanwords, like javnosj "public" [ˈjɑːvnɔʃ] (from jawność) or tjervon "red" [tʃɛrˈvoːn] (from czerwony) — standard pronunciations being [ˈjɑːʊ̯nɔʃ] and [tʃɛrˈʋoːn]. This does not happen, anyway, with loanwords from any other source.
In standard Wendlandish, [v] otherwise only appears as an allophone of /ʋ/ after /k/ — even if this too only happens in borrowings, usually learned Latin words like kvæstsura "public office" [kvæsˈtsuːra] (reborrowing from quaestūra), kvadrats "square" [kvaˈdrats] (reb. < quadrātum), or inkvizitjona "research group; scientific research; Inquisition" [iŋkviziˈtʃoːna] (reb. < inquīsītiōnem); but also from other sources, including Polish /w/, like zakvat "factory" [ˈzɑːkvat], (< zakład). Note that foreign /gv/ is usually borrowed as /kv/ too, or /ɣ/ before /u/ or /o/ (e.g. the two assimilated loanwords kvjast "star" [ˈkvjast] < Pol. gwiazda; and gosj "nail" [ˈɣoːʃ] < Pol. gwóźdź).

Phonemic /v/ is however much more common than phonemic /g/, even if used by a minority of speakers.

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Back
High	iː yː		ʉ	uː
Near-high		ɪ ʏ
High-mid	e eː ø			oː
Mid
Low-mid	œ			ɔ
Near-low	æ æː
Low			a	ɑː
Diphthongs	eɪ̯ ɛɪ̯	aɪ̯	aʊ̯	ɔʊ̯

Morphology

Nouns

Wendlandish nouns inflect for definitiveness and number; the definite article is suffixed and changes for gender, being -il for masculine nouns and -la for feminine ones (with l becoming r if there's another l in the stem).
It is not always possible to know what is the gender of the noun; generally nouns in -a are feminine (e.g. margva "carrot", tøla "table") as are many in -e (e.g. førke "girl") but for many other nouns it is not possible to know it from the form, e.g. kan "cane" is feminine but kæn "dog" is masculine; similarly oran (eagle) and agjin (fire) are both masculine while jalin (deer) is feminine.

The basic pattern is as follows:

	Masculine		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Indefinite	pisk "fish"	pisker	kara "house"	karar
Definite	piskil	piskylir	karla	karallar

Examples of allomorphy:

pufl (m) (people): pufl (sg. ind.) - puflir (pl. ind.) - puflir (sg. def.) - puflyllir (pl. def.) (see below for the -ir plural)

lynga (f) (language): lynga - lyngar - lyngra - lyngallar

Other special cases:

• Some masculine nouns in -ur lose the u in declined forms, e.g. kongur (king): kongur - kongler - kongril - kongrylir (note dissimilation of kongr- to kongl- in the plural indefinite);
  • Masculine nouns in -lur further dissimilate the resulting *-lr to -ll, e.g. milur (smile): milur - millir - miller - millyllir;
• Masculine nouns in -ð change this consonant to d in declined forms, e.g. ølð (ship): ølð - ølder - øldil - øldylir;
  • This change does not happen after -r and -j, e.g. arvejð (work): arvejð - arvejðer - arvejðil - arvejðylir;
• Some masculine nouns have plural indefinite in -ir, as a result of non-regularized original Latin -ōs. pufl (people) is possibly the most noticeable;
• Feminine nouns in -æt (< Latin -itate) change this final t into ð in declined forms, e.g. frjæt "truth": frjæt - frjæðir - frjæðla - frjæðillar;
• As seen in frjæt, feminine nouns ending in a consonant have i as the thematic vowel for plural forms, e.g. forbindasj (-asj < Lat. -ātiō) "connection": forbindasj - forbindasjir - forbindasjla - forbindasjillar.

Adjectives

Wendlandish has two adjectival declensions, one that differentiates between masculine and feminine in the singular, and another one that doesn't:

	1st declension		2nd declension
	Masculine	Feminine	Masculine and Feminine
Singular	kælt "hot"	kælta	rjal "real"
Plural	kælts		rjalir

Note that many adjectives of the 1st declension with i change this vowel into u in the feminine, deriving from Latin o, e.g. bin "good": bin (m. sg.) - buna (f. sg.) - bints (pl.). As this example shows, ns becomes nts in all such plurals.

1st declension plurals are always written by adding an s to the masculine singular, but sometimes, in clusters, there are pronunciation changes, as the original last consonant is never pronounced (in a few cases such as -mb it never is even in the singular). Some examples:

muld "new": muld [ˈmul(d)] - mulda [ˈmuːlda] - mulds [ˈmuls]

durf "cool" (colloquial): durf [ˈduɐ̯f] - durfa [ˈduːɐ̯fa] - durfs [ˈduɐ̯s]

lymb "beautiful": lymb [ˈlʏm] - limba [ˈliːmba] - lymbs [ˈlʏms]

Most adjectives are of the 1st declension; the 2nd declension ones mostly come from Latin -e adjectives or Middle High German -ik/Danish -ig ones. There are, however, a few oddities, like tjervon (red), of Polish origin, being a 2nd declension adjective.

Verbs

Wendlandish verbs inherit the four conjugations of Latin, but has categorized them in different classes as sound changes greatly modified the original verbs. The four main verb classes are:

1. -æjr verbs, that is, descendants of the Latin first conjugation, like mæjr "to love" (< amāre) or ømlæjr "to walk" (< ambulāre);
2. -ajr verbs, descendants of the Latin second conjugation, like viðajr "to see" (< vidēre) or sfajr "to be aware" (< sapēre);
3. -ir verbs, descendants of the Latin third and fourth conjugations - like hrajðir "to believe" (< crēdere), hnovskir "to know" (< gnōscere), or dirmir "to sleep" (< dormīre), inørnir "to intervene" (< intervenīre). Those which descend from the third conjugation are called the -øymur group as their first person plural present indicative ends like that (e.g. hriðøymur "we believe"), while those which descend from the fourth one are the -ymur group (e.g. dirmymur "we sleep").
4. -ær/-er verbs, which do not descend from Latin but are instead made by a generalization of the pre-Wendlandish -er infinitive suffix added to other roots, like milær "to smile" (< Old Norse smíla). This is the only currently productive conjugation - e.g. forkastsær "to have lunch"; modern colloquial daunloder "to download", sælfijer "to take a selfie", buhojer "to get drunk".

Note that verbs from the first three conjugation usually have three principal parts, for infinitive, present, and participle.

Present indicative

	ømlæjr "to walk"	viðajr "to see"	hnovskir "to know"	inørnir "to intervene"	milær "to smile"
jag	øml	vajðe	hnovsk	inørjæn	milæ
tsu	ømlur	vajðir	hnovskir	inørjænir	milær
if / ifja / ifju	ømlit	vajðit	hnovskit	inørjænit	milæt
novr	ømlømur	viðøymur	hnuskøymur	inørnymur	miløymur
vovr	ømlætir	viðætir	hnuskætir	inørnitir	milætir
ifi / ifjæ / ifja	ømlints	vajðints	hnovskunts	inørjænts	milænts
(impersonal/passive)	ømlitse	vajðitse	hnovskitse	inørjænitse	milætse

Present participle and continuous tenses

The present participle is an important formation in Wendlandish as it is used in forming continuous tenses — a different construction from other Romance languages like e.g. Portuguese estou falando/a falar or French je suis en train de parler.

The Wendlandish present participle is formed by the corresponding Latin accusative — it is however uninflected as gender wasn't distinguished on it in Latin and due to sound changes both the original -ntem and -ntēs forms both came to end in -nts. Note that the gerund did not merge as it underwent umlaut (thus forms in -ønts for all verbs); while unused in modern Wendlandish, it is actually attested in the earliest texts but with a future passive participle meaning.
The present participle is extremely simple to form, by removing the infinitive ending and adding -æjnts for -æjr verbs, -jants for -ajr and -ir verbs, and -nts for -ær verbs:

ømlæjr "to walk" (stem øml-) → ømlæjnts "walking"

viðajr "to see" (stem við-) → viðjants "seeing" (such forms are often pronounced without the /ð/, thus [ʋɪˈjants], [raɪ̯ˈjants] (hrajðjants "believing") and so on)

hnovskir "to know" (hnovsk-) → hnovskjants "knowing"

inørnir "to intervene" (inørn-) → inørnjants "intervening"

milær "to smile" (milæ-) → milænts "smiling"

These forms are used with the corresponding tenses of jas (present or imperfect), while the future is simply made with the kap auxiliary verb (it was once a regular form with the infinitive of jas, but it was later omitted so earlier jag kap jas ømlæjnts "I will be walking" → modern jag kap ømlæjnts (c.f. simple future jag kap ømlæjr "I will walk")):

jag so viðjants "I am seeing", jag jarm viðjants "I was seeing"

tsu jar jants "you are saying", tsu jarar jants "you were saying"

if jatt forkastsænts "he is eating lunch", if jart forkastsænts "he was eating lunch"

novr saurm arvejðænts "we are working", novr jørum arvejðænts "we were working"

vovr jæsts gljandænts "you (pl.) are looking", vovr jærits gljandænts "you (pl.) were looking"

ifi saunts hrjæjnts "they are making", ifi jarants hrjæjnts "they were making"

Irregular verbs

To be (jas)

Like in most Romance languages, jas (to be) is irregular. The present participle is the same as in other Romance languages; the past participle derives from an analogical form *essūtum. It is the only verb to have a synthetic subjunctive (which is used as auxiliary for the subjunctives of all other verbs).

jas (to be)	Indicative							Subjunctive
	Present	Imperfect	Synth. Past	Past	Future	Pluperfect	Fut. Perfect	Present	Imperfect
jag	so	jarm	fy	hamu jøst	kap jas	højm jøst	hamu kaft jas	si	firm
tsu	jar	jarar	fysts	hants jøst	kapir jas	hømist jøst	hants kaft jas	sis	furir
if / ifja / ifju	jatt	jart	fyt	hand jøst	kaft jas	hømit jøst	hand kaft jas	sit	firt
novr	saurm	jørum	fyrm	hvønts jøst	køymur jas	hømur jøst	hvønts kaft jas	syms	furøymur
vovr	jæsts	jærits	fysts	hvits jøst	kapætir jas	hømstir jøst	hvits kaft jas	sits	firæjtir
ifi / ifjæ / ifja	saunts	jarants	førtn	haments jøst	køpunts jas	hømyrtn jøst	haments kaft jas	sints	furints
Pres. part.	stæjnts
Past part.	jøst

To say (ditsir) and to talk (prilufir)

Two common irregular verbs are ditsir (to say) and prilufir (to talk). Both of them are suppletive: ditsir mostly comes from Latin dīcere, but the present and the past participle are from the originally deponent defective fārī (completed by analogy), and the present participle jants is from aientem, the present participle of āiō. Prilufir mostly comes from forms of prōloquī, through an analogically rebuilt active paradigm *prōloquere, but the participles are the ones of the unprefixed verb — lusjants and lukut from loquentem and locūtum respectively. Ditsir is also one of the few verbs that still has a commonly used synthetic past.

ditsir (to say)	Present	Imperfect	Synth. Past	Past	Future	Pluperfect	Fut. Perfect
jag	fir	ditsajv	dik	hamu føt	kap ditsir	højm føt	hamu kaft ditsir
tsu	færs	ditsemar	dikajst	hants føt	kapir ditsir	hømist føt	hants kaft ditsir
if / ifja / ifju	førd	ditsed	diht	hand føt	kaft ditsir	hømit føt	hand kaft ditsir
novr	føm	ditsmør	dikyrm	hvønts føt	køymur ditsir	hømur føt	hvønts kaft ditsir
vovr	fæmin	ditsmært	dikistir	hvits føt	kapætir ditsir	hømstir føt	hvits kaft ditsir
ifi / ifjæ / ifja	førnt	ditjond	dikyrtn	haments føt	køpunts ditsir	hømyrtn føt	haments kaft ditsir
(impersonal)	førdse	ditsedse	dihtse	handse føt	kaftse ditsir	hømitse føt	handse kaft ditsir
Pres. participle	jants
Past participle	føt

prilufir (to talk)	Present	Imperfect	Past	Future	Pluperfect	Fut. Perfect
jag	priluf	prilusjajv	hamu lukut	kap prilufir	højm lukut	hamu kaft prilufir
tsu	prilør	prilusjemar	hants lukut	kapir prilufir	hømist lukut	hants kaft prilufir
if / ifja / ifju	priløft	prilusjed	hand lukut	kaft prilufir	hømit lukut	hand kaft prilufir
novr	priløfmur	prilusjmør	hvønts lukut	køymur prilufir	hømur lukut	hvønts kaft prilufir
vovr	priløftir	prilusjmært	hvits lukut	kapætir prilufir	hømstir lukut	hvits kaft prilufir
ifi / ifjæ / ifja	prilukunts	prilusjond	haments lukut	køpunts prilufir	hømyrtn lukut	haments kaft prilufir
(impersonal)	priløftse	prilusjedse	handse lukut	kaftse prilufir	hømitse lukut	handse kaft prilufir
Pres. participle	lusjants
Past participle	lukut

Vocabulary

Despite being a Romance language, Wendlandish has a very high number of words of non-Latin origin, particularly from Old Norse and Proto-Slavic as the most ancient borrowings, then in the Middle Ages particularly from Middle Low German (and some words of Baltic origin), then Polish, and most recently Danish, High German, and up until the present day Russian, which was the prestige language in Soviet times and is still particularly high regarded and spoken in the present-day Wendlands. Examples of these borrowings are:

• from Old Norse: kirkja (church (coexists with ikjesj from Latin ecclēsia)), morgin (breakfast, from morginn "morning"), dravm (dream, < draumr), oran (eagle, < ǫrn), veg (street, < vegr), faur (beautiful, < fag(u)r — coexists with lymb, cognate of e.g. Portuguese lindo), and notably Vinnurlont (< Vindurlǫnd) and the Old Norse genitive Vinnurlandana (< Vindurlandana) which is used as a learned genitive in modern Wendlandish.
• from Proto-Slavic: jalin (deer, < *elenь), ljað (winter, < *ledъ "ice"), lysøs (salmon, < *lososь), tjað (baby, < *čędo), sjer (gray, < *śěrь), muld (new, < *moldъ "young"), let (year, < *lěto);
• from Middle Low German: fangnits (prison, < vangnisse), gafil (fork, < gaffel), førke (girl,< vroiken), arvejð (work, < arbeide (Latin labor > lamir came to mean "task", while the learned borrowing labor means "oeuvre", "work of art")), forkast (lunch, < vrōkost);
• from Polish the most notable ones are many colour names, like tjervon (red, < czerwony), sjilon (yellow, < zielony), and probably lilan "purple" from liliowy. Colour names in Wendlandish show many borrowings, like the probably Baltic terms ruds (brown) and gælten (yellow).

It is worth noting that most Polish loans date before the changes in pronunciation of Pol. ó and ł and as such they usually have the values /ɔ/ (or /oː/) and /l/ in Wendlandish, e.g. in gosj /ɣoːʃ/ "nail" < gwóźdź and in mildo /ˈmiːldo/ "soap" < mydło. Some terms were however adopted later and therefore have the "newer" values (e.g. zakvat /ˈzaːkʋat/ "factory" < zakład).

Russian influence and Savjetskalgia

Russian influence in Wendlandish is mostly concentrated in the last century, but there's no doubt that it has tremendously impacted the language, not only in Soviet times but, possibly even more deeply, after the Soviet Union broke up. The early post-Soviet years were marked by a huge decline in the Wendlands and people immediately developed a strong sense of nostalgia for the Golden Age of the Wendlands - the days of the Soviet Union, when the Wendlands were a strategically important and cosmopolite part of the country due to it being its westernmost extent. This sense of nostalgia — called savjetskalgia as a portmanteau of savjetski (Soviet) and nostalgia — is still enormously visible in the prestige that the Russian language, emblem of the Soviet era, has in the Wendlands, probably even more than in Russia itself. Russian loans are entering Wendlandish en masse, often with a more "official" meaning when compared to the native Wendlandish term, and Russian is the preferred language of the Academy of the Wendlandish language in order to coin terms, to the extent that Wendlandish academics have recently coined terms from Russian roots that do not even exist in Russian, like vadifsji "car" (< водивший "driven"; though colloquial Wendlandish uses lada from the car brand) or hadifon for "mobile phone" (from ходить "to walk" and Wend./international telefon). Example of Russian loans into Wendlandish are:

• political and learned terms, often Soviet-era borrowings: nizavisjmasts (independence, < независимость), plosjats (a large square, mainly for parades, especially May 9 celebrations < площадь), savjet (parliament; Soviet < совет);
• things used as honorifics when specifically talking about Communism or Soviet concepts: pavjeda (victory, < победа — c.f. May 9 dæj ið pavjedala. Note that native vihtøra was still used in this sense when the city of Tjervona Vihtørala was founded); krasni (red, < красный), pravitjelstva (government (only the Soviet and the Wendlandish ones, but colloquially often used for all), < правительство).
• many proper names, not just Russian ones like Vætjislaf (Вячеслав), Jyri (Юрий), or Lydmila (Людмила) but also words that have become used as names, like Giroj (герой, "hero"), as far as the "most uniquely Wendlandish name of all", namely Kamoj, a portmanteau of коммунистический герой "Communist hero".
• various words for things that were not part of everyday Wendlandish life before Soviet times, e.g. plitá (gas/electric stove), haladilnik (fridge), marazilnik (freezer), tilivizar (television);
• post-Soviet coinages from Russian roots or hybrid Russian-Wendlandish ones, like the vadifsji and hadifon mentioned previously; viliksjetj (internet, from великая сеть "great net"), patpojst (subway < под (under) and поезд (train)), or elekpisjmó (e-mail, from электронное письмо (electronic letter)).